


eyes closed, eyes low

by starlight_sugar



Category: Campaign (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Gen, background Grizelle/Lyn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 19:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: Bacta gets shotgun because Tryst is driving, which means that Bacta is the go-to navigator. It also, conveniently, means that Leenik and Aava are sitting in the back, and that Bacta and Aava won’t have to sit next to each other.





	eyes closed, eyes low

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the AUcember series, a self-made challenge where I try to write a new AU one-shot every day. You can read all of the AUcember fics in the collection linked above.
> 
> The title of this fic comes from [Vertigo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brq-z2IlfDA) by Khalid.

_ Los Angeles, California: _

“No,” Bacta says. “Absolutely not.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Tryst says cheerfully from the driver’s seat. “Your options are to get in the car or to buy a last minute plane ticket from LA to Seattle, and all of us know what you’re going to do.”

“It’s going to be fun,” Leenik adds, with lethal amounts of blind optimism. Or maybe it’s completely knowing, completely forced optimism. It’s hard to tell with him sometimes.

Aava, from the backseat, isn’t looking at Bacta. “You could’ve warned us,” she says, voice tight. It’s not often that Bacta has a conversation with her where she isn’t upset about something or other - upset with him, normally - but this on seems different. He doesn’t know that he’s ever seen her upset with Leenik or Tryst.

“We didn’t have a lot of choices. We actually still don’t.” Tryst looks at Bacta, eyes wide. “I’ll let you sit shotgun for this leg.”

He says it like it’s not a given. Bacta gets shotgun because Tryst is driving, which means that Bacta is the go-to navigator. It also, conveniently, means that Leenik and Aava are sitting in the back, and that Bacta and Aava won’t have to sit next to each other. He has to hand it to Tryst and Leenik: they clearly planned this out.

Leenik leans out the window. “Come on,” he says cajolingly, the way he talks to Tony. “We gotta go! You know you want to get in the car.”

Bacta sighs. “If it weren’t Grizelle’s wedding-”

“Then neither of us would be here,” Aava finishes. She almost sounds bored, but she’s still looking out the window away from Bacta, and where her arms are folded, her nails are digging into her elbows. “Get in the fucking car. We have a schedule to keep.”

Bacta knows they have a schedule to keep. Bacta made the fucking schedule. Bacta figured out the best route for a three-man road trip from Los Angeles to Seattle, because Grizelle and Lyn want to live where the hipsters live. Bacta has been looking forward to spending a few days with just Tryst and Leenik. He wouldn’t want Aava there under ordinary circumstances, but these circumstances are extraordinary.

“Fine,” Bacta practically spits out, and gets in the fucking car.

  
  


_ Central California: _

It turns out that Leenik and Tryst adjusted Bacta’s carefully-coordinated driving schedule, complete with rest stops and plans for taking turns, so that Aava gets turns driving. He can’t decide if he’s furious or impressed, so he settles for not saying anything at all.

Aava takes the second shift driving, and she does so with grace and with silence. Tryst plays the music, because he has very specific taste in driving music and none of the rest of them care half as much as he does. Bacta spends the whole time debating furiously if he wants to text Lyn and complain. Lyn is one of his closest friends, and she’s not fond of Aava either, but she is marrying Aava’s sister. That probably matters for… something.

Leenik pokes Bacta’s shoulder in the middle of an endless, horrible stretch of desert. “Are you still mad?”

“Am I still mad?” Bacta repeats. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Because it’s not fun when you’re mad,” Leenik says plainly. “I know fun isn’t the whole point of this trip, but it’s at least part of it, and it’s not a good time if you’re mad.”

“I’m still mad,” Aava offers from the driver’s seat. Bacta goes to toss her a reflexive glare before realizing that that’s almost definitely going to upset Leenik, so he gets that under control with a monumental effort.

“You’re always mad,” Leenik answers. This is the kind of thing that would get Bacta killed if he said it to Aava, but she just glances at Leenik in the rearview mirror and smiles. Which Bacta shouldn’t be surprised by, but he still somehow is.

Bacta and Aava have never gotten along. It’s just one of those things. Some people click, like Bacta and Grizelle, and they’re still friends even years after Grizelle moved to Seattle. And some people do the opposite of click, and that’s Bacta and Aava. They’ve never been able to be civil with each other, not for lack of trying. Which is difficult, because Aava gets along so well with all the rest of Bacta’s friends. He wants to like her. He wishes he could like her.

“I think Bacta’s mad,” Aava says. Not maliciously. Just casually.

Bacta does not like Aava.

“I’m thrown off balance,” he answers carefully. Leenik is giving him the absolute worst hangdog look that he has ever seen, and it’s horrible, and he feels guilty. Maybe irrationally. “Not mad.”

“Not mad?” Leenik repeats hopefully.

“No,” Bacta says, and he’s really not sure if he’s lying or not. “Not mad.”

  
  


_ Redding, California: _

Tryst and Leenik, thankfully, thought far enough ahead that they have two hotel rooms waiting for them. That really should’ve been a tip-off, in retrospect, but Bacta had assumed that it was just Leenik being Leenik. It hadn’t occurred to him that he was being conned or led on or anything like that. And, even more thankfully, Bacta is with Tryst for the night.

As soon as they reach their hotel room, Tryst looks at Bacta accusingly. “Would it kill you to be nice to her for once?”

“I am being nice to her!”

“You’re not biting her head off. Barely.”

“That’s nicer than she deserves!”

Tryst’s eyes sharpen. “Bacta.”

Bacta bites back a sigh. For all that he and Aava don’t get along, it’s easy to forget that she and Tryst are really, incredibly close. It’s not just all the sex they have, which Bacta has unfortunately heard all about. It’s something about the way they are as people that means they get along easily. And Bacta might not get along with Aava, but he’s not about to give Tryst shit for having a relationship with her.

“I will try to make polite conversation tomorrow,” Bacta says, which is a blatant and obvious lie that Tryst believes immediately. Bacta doesn’t even feel bad, he’s just relieved that Tryst isn’t questioning him at all.

“Thank you,” Tryst says. “Jesus, was that so hard?”

“Yes,” Bacta says, but he gives up as soon as Tryst glares at him. “I don’t have to like her.”

“You just have to tolerate her. And you’re not.”

Bacta doesn’t bother explaining any of the reasons he doesn’t like Aava, of which there are many. He just nods. “Can we sleep now?”

“Yes, we can sleep now,” Tryst says. “God, what did you think we stopped in the hotel for?”

“For you to yell at me about Aava.”

“That was a convenient side effect more than anything.”

“Convenient for who?”

“Shut up and sleep,” Tryst says, which might be as close as he gets to telling Bacta to take care of himself. Bacta decides to take it that way, at least.

  
  


_ Oregon: _

Tryst and Leenik, who are traitors to the cause, call dibs on the backseat after lunch, and fall asleep immediately. And it’s horrible.

Well, it’s fine at first, because Bacta is driving. It’s an easy drive from LA to Seattle: a straight shot up the I-5, only stopping once, plenty of opportunities if they get bored and decide to stop at a beach or something. It was supposed to be a fun trip.

The problem comes about twenty minutes after Bacta realizes the boys are asleep, when Aava says conversationally, “I’d like to clear the air, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Bacta lifts his eyebrows. “Wasn’t aware there was much air to clear.”

“Well, let me start by making my expectations clear. I don’t plan on leaving this conversation your new best friend.”

“I’m not in the market for-”

“Stop trying to one-up me and listen, please,” Aava says, voice clipped. 

Bacta sighs. He promised Tryst polite conversation. He can manage a little polite conversation. “What do you want?”

“I want a truce for as long as it takes my sister and your best friend to get married.”

“And how do we define a truce?”

“We don’t talk to each other.”

“That’s what we’re doing already, and it doesn’t feel particularly like a truce.’

“And,” Aava continues patiently, “we don’t complain about each other for the weekend. In private or in public. We are going to act like two perfectly civil, perfectly polite strangers at a cocktail party. So you’re not going to tell anyone that I’m a she-witch or that you hate me or anything like that.”

“And you’re not going to make pointed comments about how much time I spend with Tamlin.” He chances a look over at her, and he’s totally not surprised to see her clenching her jaw. “I am allowed to get along with the kid.”

“He’s not your nephew,” she says tightly.

“Why does that matter so much to you?”

“Because he’s family. He’s  _ my _ family.”

Bacta snorts. “Right, because we both know that blood is the be-all end-all of family” He checks the rearview mirror. Tryst and Leenik are still fast asleep, Tryst slumped against the window and Leenik slumped against Tryst’s shoulder.

When he looks at Aava again, she’s looking over her shoulder at Tryst and Leenik, eyes soft and face unreadable. “You’d think we’d be able to get it together for them,” she says softly, and Bacta’s heart clenches. He’s had the same thought hundreds of times. He wishes that Tryst and Leenik didn’t have to put up with two of their best friends hating each other.

He takes a deep breath. “I think the truce for the weekend is a good idea. This is Lyn and Grizelle’s weekend, we can’t take anything away from that.”

Aava leans back in her seat, settling in. “I think we have the same priorities here. It’s just a matter of actually following through.”

“I’m going to follow through. But not for you.”

“And I’m not doing this for you,” she agrees. “You know that.”

“I know that,” Bacta echoes. He looks in the mirror again, just to see Tryst and Leenik. They’re his family, more than any of his brothers or cousins. He can put up with someone he doesn’t like for their sake. He has to. “Do you want to… put on music or something?”

“Yes,” Aava says, sounding desperate. “Yes, Christ, I am so tired of Tryst’s fucking music and I don’t know how to tell him that.”

“Here’s the secret,” Bacta says. “You don’t tell him, because then he whines and you have to put up with that.”

“Worth it,” Aava says grimly, and Bacta has to stop himself from laughing. It’s easier to get along with her when he remembers what they have in common. Or, really, who they have in common.

 

_ Seattle, Washington: _

Lyn pulls Bacta into a tight hug as soon as he’s out of the car. He squeezes back, because he fucking missed her. “Hi,” he whispers into her ear.

“Hi yourself,” she laughs, breath warm against the side of his face. “Survived in one piece? No casualties?”

Despite himself, he looks over at where he can see Aava and Grizelle hugging, just as tightly. Aava looks more at peace than Bacta has ever seen her.

“No casualties, believe it or not,” Bacta says, and Lyn laughs again, and he grins at the sound. “We all made it okay.”

“Good,” Lyn says warmly. “We’re glad you’re all here.”

“I’m glad we’re all here too,” Bacta says, and he’s surprised by how completely he means it.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr and Twitter @waveridden!


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